Dear Yuletide Author (2020)
Oct. 12th, 2020 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
categrangerWelcome to my Yuletide letter! I am usually a lurker, and don’t do very many exchanges, so apologies if I get something wrong. In general, anything canon-style will make me quite happy, so if none of my prompts are interesting to you, please create something you enjoy and I’m sure I will too. ♥
I am participating in the Wrapping Paper mini-challenge, so I include art prompts for my requests. These are definitely only extras – if you are a writer and have no interest in art, just ignore them!
My AO3 name is![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
categranger, and the canons I’m requesting are:
The Barber of Seville | The Marriage of Figaro | Le Comte Ory (Met Opera 2011)
The Anarchy RPF | 14th & 15th CE Plantagenet Dynasty RPF | War of the Roses RPF
General likes:
- Canon-style tone.
- Worldbuilding.
- For operas: opera-style ridiculousness, opulence, OTT-ness, drama, etc.
- Fic set during the ‘happily ever after’.
- People being head-over-heels in love with each other and all cute and affectionate.
- People looking all over town for the perfect gift for their partner. (Any occasion that would fit the canon is fine.)
- People who were used to being single having to adjust to being married/having someone else in their space all the time. (Both good adjustments and funny/awkward adjustments.)
- Queer people in love. I particularly like it when there’s no sexuality-or-gender-related angst, but just people uncomplicatedly in love with each other. (Yes, even when it’s not historically accurate/likely for there to be no angst.)
- Pining (especially mutual pining) that resolves into happiness.
- People outwitting other people.
- Honeymoons!
- Porn! I am a fan of smut.
- Happy endings.
Art likes:
- Smiles.
- Sunshine.
- Affectionate, tender embraces.
- Passionate embraces.
- "Novel covers" (or "DVD covers" for the opera fandoms)
- Characters caught in the moment of telling/listening to a joke.
- The moment before a kiss (especially a first kiss).
- Characters with their head on their lover’s shoulder or in their lover’s lap.
- Characters gazing at their lovers with looks of utter besotted-ness. (If for an opera, perhaps while their lover is in the middle of an aria!)
- This is, uh, quite specific, but men kneeling in front of women (whether in penitence, worship, playfulness, lust, homage, etc.) I realised while writing this letter that it was showing up in basically all my fandoms, so might as well ‘fess to it up front. :)
- A man in a greater state of undress and/or dishevelment than the woman he's wooing.
- Portraits of women looking stalwart and determined.
- For my historical RPF fandoms -- I love the Disney Robin Hood, and I wonder how any of these historical characters might be interpreted in a similar-style Disney film. What animal might Margaret Beaufort be? Henry FitzEmpress? Etc. :D
General DNWs:
- Anyone being intolerant of queer characters.
- Queer characters facing problems that arise from their queerness.
- Animal abuse or death.
- Child abuse or death. (For my Wars of the Roses request, references to the fate of the Princes in the Tower are fine. But no onscreen portrayal of their fate, please.)
- Detailed gore. (Battle scene = fine! Description or drawing of character with intestines spilling out = please no!)
- Physical or sexual abuse.
- Dubcon and noncon. (To the extent that dubcon exists in canon, references are fine. Like, you don't have to pretend the Count isn't trying to dubcon Susanna in Nozze. But please don't put it onscreen, and no non-canon dubcon please.)
- Underage sex. (Some of the historical figures I've requested were in underage marriages, and the fact that underage sex occurred off screen is not a DNW. Like, you don't have to AU the fact that Margaret Beaufort was 13 when she gave birth to her son Henry! But please don't focus on it or give detailed references to underage sex, and definitely no onscreen underage sex.)
- Unrequested ships for the characters I've requested, including unrequested poly ships.
- (See individual canons for a few more specific canon DNWs.)
Note on opera productions: I’ve requested a particular production in only one case (Le Comte Ory – Met 2011), because its interpretation of the central trio is idiosyncratic and I love it. In all other cases, I’ve noted my favourite production(s) for reference and occasionally for plot/art points, but they’re not a must. Several are on Met Player, which has a seven-day free trial subscription (but careful, it’s addictive, haha!) and one is on Youtube.
Il barbiere di Siviglia | The Barber of Seville - Rossini/Sterbini
Characters: Rosina, Conte di Almaviva, Figaro
All Characters Required? Rosina is my only must! I would love a story with all three characters, but if you have an idea that only requires Rosina, or Rosina and one of the others, that’s fine.
Favourite Production(s): I’ve watched a lot of Barbers! “My” Barber is the Met 2007, starring DiDonato, Flórez, Mattei, and Del Carlo. Perfect casting in all roles, fantastic chemistry, and gorgeous singing. It’s on Met Player (with a free 7-day trial subscription), and bits and pieces are on Youtube. I also like the famous 2009 RoH one with DiDonato in a wheelchair after breaking her foot opening night (DVD only as far as I know), which retains DiDonato & Flórez, but I like 2007 better because Mattei is an absolutely perfect, definitive Figaro and Del Carlo’s Bartolo is hilarious. Also Flórez’s drunk-soldier costume & act is funnier in 2007, and he and DiDonato are about 50% more lovestruck teenagers, especially towards the end, which I enjoy. (Poor exasperated Figaro, trying to get these handsy besotted lovers to escape down the fucking ladder already!) [Six-and-a-half minutes of this part, from “Ah, qual colpo inaspettato!” through all of “Zitti zitti”, is on Youtube, to give you a taste for the central trio’s chemistry.] And finally I also enjoy the 2014 Met one, which is the same production as 2007 but stars Leonard, Brownlee, and Maltman. I find Maltman’s Figaro underwhelming, but Leonard and Brownlee are lovely and I’d particularly enjoy art of them together. (Tiny Youtube clip.)
I just love this opera. It’s so funny and bubbly and effervescent, and yet there’s a real story as well. Rosina’s being menaced with a forced marriage to her elderly guardian, and she’s willing to elope with a penniless student she’s fallen in love with during nighttime serenades in order to escape. This could’ve gone extremely badly for her! (See for example poor Gilda in Rigoletto.) But instead Rosina outwits her guardian, wins her true love, and becomes a Countess, all in the course of one extremely eventful day.
Rosina is the heart of this opera for me. (As she is in Nozze too.) I adore her cleverness, her quick wit, her fearlessness, and her utter commitment to getting what she wants. Every time she outwits Bartolo I grin (the falling letter! The laundry list! Etc.). And all the clandestine flirting with ‘Lindoro’ (in his various costumes) is adorable. By the end of the opera, she’s truly earned her happy ending.
I obviously ship Rosina/Almaviva a lot – and while I do see Barber & Nozze as two halves of a whole, I’d prefer to have Barber fic not foreshadow Nozze. (For example, I see the Count as truly infatuated with Rosina at this point, and wouldn’t enjoy a Barber fic in which he was perving on/flirting with other women.) Some ideas: Rosina or the Count’s POV during any of the opera’s scenes. Rosina and the Count’s wedding night (as explicitly, joyously smutty as you please!) Rosina learning how to be a Countess, with a fondly infatuated husband constantly distracting her. (If you want to give the Count a first name, I’m fine with that. Or Rosina can use Lindoro as a pet name if you like, or keep playfully calling him ‘signore’. Whatever works for your story!)
I also love Rosina and the Count’s separate relationships with Figaro, and how they seem to be growing towards friendship as the opera progresses. (Culminating in the comradeship of “Zitti zitti”.) It’d be neat to see his POV on the events of the opera, particularly if using the older-brother flair Mattei gives to the character, or how he allows himself to be persuaded to give up his barbering and enter the Count’s service afterwards. (Lots of gold, I imagine?)
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• ‘Lindoro’ serenading Rosina on her balcony.
• Rosina writing her letter to Lindoro and plotting her plan of attack during “Una voce poco fa”.
• Rosina’s wheelchair and pink cast from RoH 2009 are adorable. I’d love to see any art of her from that production, especially flirting with/kissing Almaviva, but also plotting with Figaro.
• Almaviva in costume! As I mentioned, I love the 2007 drunken-soldier costume a lot. But any costume is great.
• The singing lesson scene (with a sleeping Bartolo, perhaps?)
• Exasperated Figaro on the ladder, with besotted lovers necking beneath.
• The trio singing “Zitti zitti” and smiling a lot. Especially the trio from 2007.
• The Count and Rosina kissing, or embracing. (I’m equally fond of DiDonato/Flórez and Leonard/Brownlee’s portrayals, and would love to see either. If the latter, I found the height difference hot, so please keep it!)
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Le nozze di Figaro | The Marriage of Figaro - Mozart/Da Ponte
Characters: Rosina, Conte di Almaviva, Susanna, Figaro
All Characters Required? Rosina is my only must! If your story includes all four characters, that’s great, but don’t feel you have to shoehorn them in if they don’t fit.
Favourite Production(s): I must have seen thirty Nozzes at this point! It’s my favourite opera. I do have a favourite production which I utterly adore – the 1993 Gardiner (Paris), with Terfel, Hagley, Martinpelto, and Gilfry. The central couples are perfectly cast, with fantastic voices, chemistry, and acting, and Hagley is THE Susanna. I also really like the character interpretations, and Rosina’s relationship with Susanna & Figaro. It’s available on Youtube.
Notes on a few other productions:
• For an older Count/Countess, IMO the best is the Met’s 1998 production with Fleming, Terfel, Bartoli, and Croft. I don’t really like Croft’s Count, but the other three are good (though Bartoli switches out Susanna’s arias and I miss the standard ones).
• For another good young cast (all early 30s or younger), try Salzburg 1995 (on Youtube), with Hvorostovsky, Terfel, Kringlebotn, Graham, and a young Röschmann in her first big break. I think it’s the only time Hvorostovsky & Terfel ever co-starred; Dima’s own laughing assessment was that “Bryn ate me alive and spat me out!”, but his Count is fine (particularly when he’s singing with Kringlebotn & Röschmann in Act II, and not overshadowed by Terfel). And Röschmann’s Susanna is lovely and has a good rapport with Kringlebotn.
• For my favourite Cherubino, see Isabel Leonard’s portrayal in Met 2014.
• For Rosina/Susanna, Gardiner is my favourite but I also really like La Scala 2017 (Damrau/Schultz), which is Damrau’s debut as the Countess. She and Schultz have great chemistry together (here’s Sull'aria), and are both absolutely gorgeous. (Although fair warning, some of that production is weird and Rosina/Count doesn’t work for me in it).
Like in Barber, Rosina is the centre of Nozze for me. Figaro/Susanna is delightful (particularly in well-cast productions) and I love their relationship too, but it’s Rosina who owns my heart. The combination of her steadfast love for her husband (even when he’s being an utter dickhead) and her alliance with Susanna to outsmart him and show him the error of his ways is just fantastic. I want a happy ending for her so desperately!
Ships: First, Count/Rosina, of course. If you can get them to what Rosina would consider a happy ending, that would be wonderful. I think she’s clear-eyed about his weakness for pretty women at this point, and accepts that it’s probably impossible to cure him of straying and sleeping with other women occasionally. But him remembering how & why he fell in love with Rosina in the first place, and no longer neglecting her and leaving her pining for him, would go a hell of a long way. I’d love it if it was her clever outwitting of him that reminded him of their courtship in Barber, and led to a reconciliation. (I am also never going to say no to repentant!Count making it up to Rosina in every way he can, including in the bedroom. And I do think he’s genuinely repentant – he’s a proud man and if he wasn’t repentant he would never humble his pride and kneel to her in front of so many people.) Even if it’s just ‘happy for now’ (with the tacit acknowledgment that he’ll probably be back to his old ways in six months), I’ll take it.
Then there’s Susanna/Figaro & Rosina. I love Susanna & Figaro’s relationship – especially in productions like the Gardiner, where Susanna absolutely has Figaro wrapped around her little finger and they’re ridiculously in love – and I love that Rosina’s friendship with and reliance on Figaro has continued after the events of Barber. She hasn’t developed airs on becoming Countess and dropped him. One thing I’d be interested in is a story that looked at Rosina’s friendship with Figaro (and subsequently Susanna as well) from Barber through to Figaro – how it changed and developed, and how it was there for her when she needed it during the events of Nozze. Or maybe a story about how Rosina helped matchmake Susanna & Figaro! Or a post-Nozze story about Rosina’s continuing friendship with Susanna & Figaro after their marriage.
And finally, there’s my non-canon pairing of Rosina/Susanna. This particularly works for me in productions where they’re close in age, like the Gardiner. In many ways Susanna is very similar to Barber!Rosina, so I definitely buy that they would become close friends and companions. I’d love to read a story in which that friendship developed over time into something more. Usually I’m not a fan of infidelity, but in this case I’d be fine with Rosina/Susanna existing alongside their canon pairings. Anything from a cute stolen kisses scene, to Susanna comforting Rosina after the Count’s latest shenanigans, to another Susanna/Rosina plan to outwit the Count, would be great. Or their first meeting, or the first time Susanna or Rosina realized she was falling in love with the other, or Rosina or Susanna thinking about how the Count's jealous suspicions of the men of the household are laughably misplaced, etc. etc. I will love it all.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• I love the Act II finale – the music is gorgeous, and the drama tense. Any snapshot from it would be neat. Susanna hiding around a corner/behind a curtain while Rosina and the Count face off! The bit where the Count offers Rosina his arm to leave together and she totally scorns him! Susanna emerging from the wardrobe to shocked faces from Rosina and the Count! Etc.
• Susanna and Figaro flirting.
• Susanna and Rosina dressing in each other’s clothing/Susanna adjusting Rosina’s veil.
• Susanna, Figaro, and Rosina smiling at each other.
• The Count romancing ‘Susanna’/his wife in disguise.
• The final scene, with a penitent Count kneeling at Rosina’s feet (the Gardiner in particular does this very well). Or with him kissing her hands (or a real kiss! Only a few productions give us one but I’d like it.)
A few canon-specific DNWs:
• While I like Cherubino, and having him around is fine, Cherubino/Countess is my NOTP, and the Countess being attracted to him is a big DNW for me. I also don’t like the idea of Cherubino as the Count’s lovechild.
• Some productions have the Count be physically abusive to Rosina during his jealous rage in “Esci ormai garzon malnato”. Physical abuse is an ironclad DNW for me. I’m okay with him having a jealous rage/shouting at Rosina/threatening to kill Cherubino, as long as he doesn’t physically touch her. (Although honestly I’d prefer not to have that part of the finale be focused on.)
• Please no age gap between the Count and Countess. I’m fine with either a young Count/Countess or a middle-aged Count/Countess, but not with age-gap.
• For Rosina/Susanna, please no power-dynamic or mistress-servant kink. I know they aren’t social equals, but I prefer them to be as much genuine friends as possible.
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Le Comte Ory (Met Opera 2011)
Characters: Adèle, Isolier, Comte Ory
All Characters Required? Adèle and Isolier, please. The Comte can come or not, depending on your story.
Favourite Production(s): As this is the one opera where I requested a particular production, I obviously have a favourite! ;) This production is available on Met Player (with a free 7-day trial) and on DVD. The central trio is Damrau/DiDonato/Flórez, and all three have ridiculous levels of chemistry with each other. Which is great because this is the production that takes the farce in the last act – with Isolier pretending to be Adèle and tricking the Comte into feeling up/trying to seduce his own male page – to another level. Instead it becomes a delightful, consensual threesome in which the Comte realises halfway through what’s going on and doesn’t give a fig. Cue threesome romp in bed!
Beyond the threesome, I just really love this production in general. As in Barber, Flórez is a hoot in disguise (here a pontificating hermit and a surprisingly handsy nun). DiDonato is a delight as Isolier, the earnest young page who lays honest siege to his lady love’s heart (and wins her hand!) while conspiring with her to frustrate the Comte’s amatory intentions (and then choosing with her to indulge those intentions for a little while). And Damrau, one of my favourite sopranos, is a sweet, fluffy, but shrewd young Countess who totally rumbles “Sister Colette” and spends the rest of the opera trolling him.
Things I would love to see! The threesome, obviously. As explicit and hot or as bubbly and light-hearted as you like. (Or both! Both is good.) There’s an additional outtake clip on Youtube (from the dress rehearsal) that takes the explicit level even higher than in the actual show – the Comte and Isolier stick their heads up Adèle’s skirts – and I love that. I’d also love to see if the Comte came back later (perhaps for their wedding? Or a year or so down the line?) and all three of them fell back into bed together again.
I’d also enjoy Adèle/Isolier fic, with or without the platonic(ish) presence of the Comte. (Maybe he comes back a year later and there is no threesome but he flirts roguishly with both of them? Maybe he tries to come back in a new disguise to troll them but they see through it immediately – or do they?) Damrau and DiDonato have delicious chemistry and I would definitely love to read more about their Adèle and Isolier falling in love. Either of their POVs during an opera scene would be lovely, or after the opera when Isolier meets Adèle’s brother and the engagement goes forward. What do they tell Adèle’s brother about how they met/fell in love? Somehow I doubt they’d ever tell him about the threesome, lol, although they might tell him some abridged version of how Isolier saved Adèle from the aspirations of the libertine Comte.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• The Comte in his nun disguise! I love ‘Sister Colette’.
• Sister Colette and Adèle.
• Sister Colette kneeling at Adèle’s feet (especially if Adèle has that knowing smirk on her face).
• Adèle and Isolier in love, embracing, kissing, etc.
• Threesome romp!
• Isolier and the Comte kissing while Adèle watches them, smiling.
• Isolier or the Comte with their head up Adèle’s skirts while the other one watches avidly and Adèle giggles.
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The Anarchy RPF
Characters: Empress Matilda | Maude, Matilda of Boulogne, Henry FitzEmpress
All Characters Required? Nope! I would be happy with a story about any combination of these characters, or about any of them on their own. [Stephen is the fourth character in the tagset, and he’s more than welcome as well, as long as he’s in combination with one or more of the others.]
This time period is just so intriguing for me! The personalities involved are huge and the clash of wills at once so personal and so public. I would love a story about any or all of my requested characters, whether a small private moment or an epic wartime drama or anything in between.
[I have read and enjoyed some fictional portrayals of this time period – most notably the Brother Cadfael series and Penman’s When Christ and His Saints Slept. I decided to request in this fandom instead of either of those because I want to leave your hands completely free for fresh characterizations. If you love either of those portrayals, though, you are welcome to take inspiration from their characterization and/or events (and to use fictional characters from the Cadfael series, if you so desire; however I am tired of Penman’s fictional Ranulf and would prefer he not appear). This is 1000% only an option, though!]
Maude: What a woman! Truly a whirlwind, and you can 100% see where her son Henry got his epicness from. I would love a story about pretty much any time in Maude’s quest for the English crown. I love the famous episode in which she escapes from Stephen in a snowstorm – if you wrote that in a TV series or movie, it would be mocked as unbelievable! I would also love a closer look at her relationship with her son Henry. (What did she think of his boyhood invasion of England, after which Stephen actually paid his armies? What were her feelings when Henry was able to do what she couldn’t, and take the English throne? Did she see herself in Henry? Was she maybe a tiny bit jealous of him, even though she was incredibly proud at the same time? What does she think when she learns of his marriage?) The only thing I wouldn’t enjoy is a focus on her relationship with her husband Geoffrey; he bothers me intensely. (On the other hand, while I'm not personally a Maude/Brian Fitz Count shipper, the ship doesn't bother me, and if you ARE a shipper I'm fine with it being included.)
Matilda of Boulogne: Matilda is amazing. My favorite episode of hers is the incredible year of 1141. Maude captures Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln, while Matilda and Stephen’s heir is still a child – Stephen has effectively been deposed, and the civil war would seem to be over. But Matilda doesn’t give up that easily! While Maude is in London getting ready for her coronation and infuriating the city populace, Matilda rallies Stephen’s troops and leads them to London. When the people of London chase Maude out of their city (another dramatic episode!), Maude goes to besiege Stephen’s brother Bishop Henry, who is besieging Winchester (it’s complicated, there are two castles in Winchester and one is besieging the other, with the citizens of Winchester the unhappy collateral damage). Matilda occupies London, then follows Maude to Winchester and attacks, leading to a smashing victory in which Maude’s half-brother and biggest supporter, Robert of Gloucester, is captured. This changes everything! Robert and Stephen are exchanged for each other, and the civil war is back in full swing again. (And Maude would never again be anywhere near this close to taking the throne!) A story set during this time period would be wonderful! It’s such a critical point in the Anarchy, with such intense emotional height for both women. But I am more than ready to read a story set at a different time as well!
Henry FitzEmpress: I really enjoy the young Henry! I would prefer to read a story focused on Henry and the Anarchy, if that makes sense, rather than on Henry Regnant with Eleanor at his side (although I love Eleanor, and you don’t have to pretend she doesn’t exist). Two of my favorite episodes with young Henry: 1) his rash boyhood invasion of England (at fourteen!), in which he raises some hell but doesn’t have the money to pay his troops, so he asks Stephen to pay them and Stephen actually does in return for Henry going back to Anjou. This whole situation cracks me up. I would love to read a story about why and how this whole thing happened, and what Stephen thinks of young Henry, and what young Henry thinks of Stephen, etc etc. And 2) the Treaty of Winchester, when Henry and Stephen end the Anarchy and decide the succession. It’s just such an unusual way to end a civil war, and I’d love to read more about it! I would also love to read about Henry & Maude’s relationship, as I mentioned in her section.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Maude escaping in the snowstorm
• Maude having Stephen brought before her in chains; bonus if Stephen is kneeling in front of her - double bonus if he's in chains AND wearing his crown
• Maude and Henry! (Either child-Henry or adult-Henry. Or baby Henry!)
• AU where Maude wins: "coronation portrait" of Maude in her crown
• Matilda besieging Winchester
• Matilda being reunited with Stephen after the prisoner exchange
• Stephen meeting the fourteen-year-old Henry after his invasion
• Stephen and Henry sharing the kiss of peace at the Treaty of Winchester
• Henry introducing Eleanor to Maude.
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14th & 15th CE Plantagenet Dynasty RPF
Characters: Joan of Kent, Edward of Woodstock | The Black Prince, Katherine Swynford, Catherine de Valois
All Characters Required? No. I see these characters in two subsets: Joan and Edward, and Joan, Katherine, and Catherine. (For the latter subset, if you find it too hard to include Catherine, you could just do Joan and Katherine, although I would prefer to have all three.) If you write a story about either of these subsets, you don’t have to include the other subset. (Of course, if your story turns out to include all four characters, that’s fine too!)
Joan/Edward
Joan of Kent (the Fair Maid of Kent) has such a fascinating history, I just long to know (fictionalized) more! Secret marriage at age 12? Bigamous marriage at age 13? Both husbands fighting over her when the first one returns from overseas when she’s 20? The Pope has to step in and rule on which husband is her Real Husband?
And then, after eleven years of marriage and five children, when her husband dies, the Prince of Wales turns out to be madly in love with her, despite the fact that she’s now in her 30s, a few years older than him, has a bunch of children and a scandalous past, doesn’t have his parents’ approval, and needs four (four!) papal dispensations in order to marry him, and they’re married as soon as they can rush the dispensations through (within nine months of her husband’s death!) and have fifteen happy years of marriage before he dies of dysentery.
I would just love to see your interpretation of Joan and Edward’s love story!
While I would prefer Joan/Edward to be a genuine love match (it’s hard to see why Edward would have married her otherwise!), I am open to however you interpret Joan’s previous two marriages. Her fear of disclosing her secret marriage to Holland for fear he would be executed for treason might seem to point to a genuine regard for him, but then again she was 12 and he was 26 – it’s hard to like a guy who decides to secretly marry a twelve-year-old. And her marriage to Salisbury may have started when they both were 13, and Salisbury may (may!) have truly fallen in love with her, but it’s hard to like a guy who literally holds his wife captive so she can’t testify about her first marriage. I’m open to an interpretation of either or both of these marriages as happy (but probably complex?) ones, or as unhappy ones.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Joan and Edward at a joust. Joan giving Edward her favor?
• Edward presenting Joan with a silver cup from one of his military campaigns (this was during her earlier marriage and is a major hint that he was long-term pining for her)
• Joan on tiptoe to kiss Edward while he is still in his black armor
Joan, Katherine, and Catherine
These are three ladies who made Unconventional Marriages (not always by choice), and I find it really interesting that those marriages ended up central stage in the decline and fall of the Plantagenet Dynasty! None of them were conventional noblewomen, and none of them preserved a pure and regal reputation – at points in each of their lives, they had pretty much no reputation at all! They each found the man they loved, and they stuck with him, whatever the scandalized world might say about it.
Joan
See above section about Joan and Edward.
Katherine
The teenage governess who became friends with a teenage duchess, and then fell in love with her friend’s widower when they were both grieving their first spouses. The knight’s daughter turned duke’s mistress, who refused to hide from a scandalized society, and openly loved the most powerful man in the kingdom, even though she did not have the legal right to call him her own. The sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer, who raised three households in one cacophonous blended family, and was beloved by her departed friend’s children as much as by her own. The mistress turned duchess, who despite all odds and scandal had her love and her children legitimized by the Church and by society.
Katherine Roët Swynford, later Duchess of Lancaster, is truly a legendary figure. I find her love story with John of Gaunt such a complex and beautiful one. I’m also deeply interested in her friendship with her employer Blanche of Lancaster, and in her subsequent role as mother and stepmother to her huge blended family (Blanche’s three, her Swynford three, and her Beaufort four). That family was absolutely critical to the story of the Plantagenet dynasty from that point forward – from the rise of the cadet branch of Lancaster founded by her stepson Henry Bolingbroke (who called her “the King’s mother”), to the rise of the cadet branch of York founded through the line of her daughter Joan Beaufort, to the fall of the Plantagenet dynasty and the rise of the Tudor dynasty founded through the line of her son John Beaufort. A forbidden love changed the course of a kingdom, and ultimately brought down a dynasty.
Catherine
When your father is known as Charles the Mad, things may not go very well for your country. Teenage princess Catherine de Valois found herself spoils of war for the English King who had conquered her country, disinherited her brother, and coolly demanded she marry him. Within a year, she’d been carried off to England, impregnated, and abandoned, as the King went back to continue fighting his wars. Within another year, she was left a widow with a baby King for a son, a Dowager Queen only twenty years old.
A beautiful young dowager queen was a source of great worry for the guardians of the kingdom, her baby’s uncles. There was talk that Catherine might marry an English nobleman and give birth to influential royal siblings, and Parliament moved to prohibit such a destabilizing factor by passing a law that said if she married without the king’s consent, her husband would forfeit all his lands and possessions (and that the king had to be of age to give his consent). Yet forbidding love is a fool’s errand, and although English noblemen might stay away from Catherine for fear of losing everything, they were not the only men around. A Welsh courtier named Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur (or Owen Tudor) caught her eye. (Legend has some colorful ways this may have happened; some say, for example, that he fell into her lap while dancing, and that the rest was history.) However it happened, she was soon pregnant with their first child.
It’s unclear whether Catherine and Owen ever actually married. The Tudor dynasty certainly argued that they did, as they already had dubious legitimacy from their Beaufort side and didn’t need it from their Tudor side as well. But there’s no evidence that they did, just that they loved each other and had several children together. They stayed happily together until Catherine’s death, shortly after childbirth, in 1437. Their sons Edmund and Jasper became close to their royal half-brother, and Edmund was the father of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch.
Prompts for The Ladies:
• I love all the parallels and contrasts between these unusual love stories. So many relationships in this time period seem predictable and conventional, but all of these seem anything but! What did it mean to Joan, to Katherine, to Catherine, to step outside societal norms, brave condemnation and scorn, and take their joy with both hands? How did they cope with the scandals? Was there a fierce vindication for Joan and Katherine when they forced society to acknowledge them, despite their pasts?
• Joan and Katherine must have at least known of each other, and most likely met, since Katherine was in love with Joan’s brother-in-law. What did they think of each other? Did Joan scorn Katherine, since their societal rank was so different, or did she pity another woman facing scandal because of the man she loved? Or did they first meet when Katherine was just a governess, Blanche’s friend? Or maybe even before, when Katherine was a knight’s daughter in the royal household, and Joan the beautiful and happy wife of the Prince of Wales?
• Catherine grew up in France and wouldn’t have known Joan and Katherine, but after her arrival in England she no doubt heard their stories. What does she think of them? Does she liken her situation to theirs, as she falls in love with a completely unacceptable Welshman? (Who, legend has it, was uncommonly handsome.) Perhaps she finds a forgotten love letter of theirs, tucked in a cubby somewhere in one of the palaces. Or she’s debating whether to forget her duty and embrace her love for Owen, and one of her friends tells her about a woman (or women) who were brave in love.
• I kind of really dig the complexity of matrimony in these women’s lives. Joan’s checkered matrimonial history is so complicated as to become almost ridiculous, and yet in the end Edward simply doesn’t care about any of it, he just wants her, and her past be damned. Katherine has a happy first marriage, and then a lifelong partnership outside of marriage, only at the end to shock everyone by being officially wed and turned overnight into a legitimate Duchess after being slandered and abused by society for so long. Catherine is a forced bride, who finds love with a social inferior, and may not even bother to sanctify it with matrimony (and after all, a forced bride may not find weddings all that appealing anyway). A story that explored the role of matrimony (and lack of matrimony) in their lives would be intriguing!
• A fic that tied the three of them together through an image (say, Christmas morning surrounded by their family), or a place (say, attending the royal court), or an experience (say, horseback riding with their love), or an emotion (perhaps, the happiest moment of their lives? Or the moment they first realized the depth of their love? Or the moment they first realized they were loved back? Or – something else I haven’t thought of!) would be really lovely.
• Like I said at the top, I see all these women as intertwined in the story of the Plantagenet dynasty, and in the beginning of its fall. I would love a fic that captured a sense of that, of private loves that became part of the historical sweep, of intimate moments that became so much more. I really enjoy this dynasty, and the beginning of its fall is an intriguing time period. And these three women, with their society-defying love affairs, were centrally involved in how and why the Plantagenet Dynasty went in the directions it did.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Katherine surrounded by her boisterous blended family
• Katherine being honored as "the king's mother" by her stepson Henry Bolingbroke; whether just the two of them, or maybe Henry bowing his head to her at court after the coronation while courtiers look on? Or whatever that means to you!
• Katherine, Blanche, John of Gaunt, Hugh Swynford, and their ten assorted children (+ in-laws & grandchildren?) in the afterlife. Truly a menagerie. xD Or just the trio of Katherine, Blanche, and John!
• Catherine meeting Owen somewhere secret - maybe the stables?
• Owen kneeling in front of Catherine, and Catherine laughing
• The contrast between Catherine's first marriage (Princess of France, a forced bride) and her second (disregarded Dowager Queen, eloping)
• Any of the ladies with their true love
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Wars of the Roses RPF
Characters: Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York Queen of England
All Characters Required? No, you don’t have to include both. (But you can!)
Canon DNWs: 1) The character Edmund Tudor. 2) The ship Richard III/Elizabeth of York.
I really enjoy the Wars of the Roses era! Not all the death and destruction, but how complex it is, and how tense the jockeying is, and how things are really quite up in the air for long periods of time. People who start off in bad positions end up on the top, and vice versa, and then vice versa again. Turncoats and undercover operations and cunning stratagems and long-term planning all abound. I also am truly neutral on Richard III – I’ve read beautiful Ricardian work (The Sunne in Splendour!!), and I’d buy him as a hero if you’re a Ricardian, but I’d also be fine with an anti-Ricardian fic where he was a dastardly villain. (In either case, however, note my DNW about Richard/Elizabeth.)
While I am intrigued by a great number of people from this era, I’m just requesting two, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York. I would love a story about either or both of these women!
(If you are writing Margaret Beaufort, please do not include Edmund Tudor. This includes anything more than the most glancing of references to him as Henry's father.)
Margaret
Margaret’s life is so fascinating to me. From childhood, she is a pawn in the games of powerful men, who then turns herself into a player. For the sake of her son, she schemes tirelessly, manipulates constantly, and never stops playing the long game. Over the course of decades, from the child-mother of thirteen to the king’s-mother of forty-four, she plays the War of the Roses perhaps better than any other, and moves kingdoms to secure her son a crown.
I would love pretty much any story you wanted to tell me about Margaret (excepting only one that involved Edmund). I don’t need her to be a morally pure character – in fact, if you buy into the theory that she (and/or Henry) was the one to make the call about the Princes in the Tower, that’s fine with me. She can be as morally grey (or even outright villainous) as you want to make her. I just want to see your vision of what might have driven her and been inside her head during those long exhausting dangerous decades of trimming her sails to match the wind, and never giving up hope or losing sight of her dream for her son.
I would also really enjoy a story set during her triumphal years, when she was an (extremely rare) feme sole, despite being married, and had a great deal of influence on her son the King. She was only 44 when Henry became King, and was in power another 24 years. What was power like for her? What did she think of her daughter-in-law? What about her grandchildren? (She outlived her son, and died shortly after her grandson Henry’s marriage and coronation.) Did she sympathize with Catherine of Aragon during her long uncertain years as Arthur’s impoverished widow?
Some specific Margaret prompts:
• The first time Margaret looks at her son and decides that he will be the King of England.
• Margaret learning how to transform herself from a child pawn into a player of the game of kings.
• The first time Margaret has to make a morally dubious move.
• Margaret negotiating her marriage with Stanley (which I read as very calculated on both sides, in a way that appeals to me!)
• Margaret persuading Stanley to risk his hostage son’s life in order to give her son a better shot at the throne
• Margaret’s relationship with the Yorks – what does she think of the different members of the family? How does she manipulate them? Who does she watch out for most closely, and who does she think she can manage most easily?
• If Margaret DID mastermind the ‘disappearance’ of the Princes in the Tower, how and why did she do it? Was it hard for her?
• Margaret and Elizabeth Woodville’s negotiations for the marriage of their children.
• The moment that Margaret first lets herself believe that Henry will become King.
• What is it like for her when she becomes a feme sole, has Henry’s trust, and acquires all the power she ever dreamed of? What’s it like being able to stop playing the long game and just rule? What’s it like not having to curb your tongue and listen to powerful men any longer?
• Margaret and Henry’s relationship over the years, and how it changes
• Margaret and her grandchildren
• Margaret and her daughter-in-law
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Margaret watching Henry be crowned, or watching the crowds acclaim him in a procession
• Margaret with her grandchildren – whether playing with them when they’re little, or watching Henry VIII marry Catherine or be crowned
• Margaret and Elizabeth Woodville negotiating the Henry/Elizabeth marriage
• Margaret with her baby son, dreaming of the future
• Margaret holding the crown (or wearing it!)
Elizabeth
Elizabeth of York is also deeply intriguing to me! Her life was full of such wild reversals and changes in fortune, and I’d really like to see a fictional take on how she handled the tumult. Until she was 17, she was a beloved eldest daughter, the acclaimed Princess of a secure dynasty (well, after the restoration of her father when she was 5!), safe and protected within a large, close family. (And engaged to the Dauphin of France for most of her life, from age 9 to age 16.) Then her father’s sudden and unexpected death brought her 12-year-old brother to the throne (I wonder what their relationship was like?), and sent her mother, herself, and her sisters fleeing into sanctuary out of fear of her uncle’s power. (But her uncle and her father had always been close – was Elizabeth as afraid of Richard as her mother was? What did she think when he had her maternal uncle executed?) Then Richard ‘discovered’ the precontract between her father and another woman, and declared Elizabeth and all her siblings bastards, and crowned himself King. Then Elizabeth’s brothers in the Tower disappeared, never to reappear. Then Elizabeth’s mother and Margaret Beaufort negotiated her marriage with Henry Tudor, who swore an oath to marry her and promptly invaded England (he failed the first time). Then Elizabeth lived at Richard’s court as the niece of the King for two years, and became close to her dying aunt Anne. Then there was a rumor that Richard intended to marry her once Anne died, and he sent her away and started negotiating her marriage to the Portuguese heir. Then Henry invaded again, killed Richard, crowned himself King, repealed the act that made Elizabeth a bastard, got Elizabeth pregnant, and married her. (It’s interesting to me that Elizabeth was pregnant before her wedding – Arthur was an eight-month baby. Did she and Henry actually really like each other and get carried away? Did they agree that their marriage was a necessity to settle England, and wanted to present the pope with a fait accompli in order to make sure their dispensation came through? Or that their fertility was necessary to establish a new dynasty and secure peace, and that they should make sure of it before committing to each other?) [Please note, however, that while I am completely fine with Henry and Elizabeth being awkward and unsure around each other at first, I would definitely not want Elizabeth dubconned or nonconned into marriage.]
All of the above happened in less than three years. Edward IV died in April 1483 and Elizabeth and Henry were married in January 1486, a month before her twentieth birthday. Talk about a rollercoaster three years!
I would love pretty much any story you wanted to write about Elizabeth. (Excepting Elizabeth/Richard – I ship Richard/Anne forever, thanks to Sharon Kay Penman, and incest ships don’t appeal to me. A close uncle & niece relationship is fine though!) I do ship Elizabeth/Henry, but I don’t need their relationship to be 100% fluffy and straightforward, particularly at first! Angst and drama are perfectly okay. (No consent issues though, please.) I like how Thomas Penn put it in his Henry VII biography Winter King (2012), writing about Elizabeth’s death, that “[though] founded on pragmatism, Henry and Elizabeth’s marriage had nevertheless blossomed throughout the uncertainty and upheaval of the previous eighteen years. This was a marriage of ‘faithful love’, of mutual attraction, affection and respect, from which the king seems to have drawn great strength.” Henry was absolutely devastated and brokenhearted by Elizabeth’s death in childbirth, which took everyone a bit by surprise as he was certainly not known for his emotions.
Some prompts:
• What was Elizabeth’s family life as a teenager, and how did it compare with the family she built with Henry? We know that Christmases were especially celebrated in the Tudor court, and were a high-merriment family time. Did Elizabeth get that from her own childhood? Henry had never had a close family life like that. What did he like best about it?
• What did Elizabeth think when her mother and Margaret Beaufort negotiated her marriage with Henry Tudor? Was she in favor of the plan? What did she think about staying in England and becoming its Queen? (After having been engaged to the Dauphin of France for most of her life, and then Richard trying to marry her off to the heir of Portugal.) Did she see herself as inheriting England from her father and brother, in a way?
• How did she grieve her father and brothers’ deaths? Did she believe that her brothers were dead? Did she believe that maybe one of her brothers had escaped, and was she constantly looking over her shoulder, thinking that he might show up safe after all? How did she feel about that, especially after she was Queen and had children who might be threatened by an uncle’s reappearance?
• How did Elizabeth and Henry fall in love? Was it before or after they married? What was the first time she realized that, against all odds, she had found love in an arranged, pragmatic marriage with a man everyone thought was cold and pragmatic himself?
• How does Elizabeth tell Henry that she’s pregnant? What does it mean to both of them? Do they see the baby as the end of the Wars of the Roses, and swear a vow to make it so? (I love that they went totally off script on the name and chose Arthur – if that’s not symbolic, I don’t know what is.) Do they keep it a secret from everyone, or do people know at the wedding that she’s already (newly) pregnant? Or do they not know until after the wedding, and it’s a honeymoon announcement from Elizabeth to Henry?
• How does Elizabeth and Henry’s love grow over the years? What are some milestones along the way? Or quiet/intimate moments of rest?
• How does Elizabeth help Henry consolidate his power and make certain that the Tudor dynasty is secure and the wars are over? How does she feel about Perkin Warbeck?
• Henry spent a lot of his life in exile abroad. How does Elizabeth teach him more about the country he has come to rule?
• What is Elizabeth’s relationship with her mother-in-law Margaret Beaufort like? Did she already know her from her time at Edward IV and Richard III’s courts as Lady Stanley? Do they ever have to work together towards some end? What are the mother vs grandmother negotiations like over Elizabeth’s children? (E.g., does Margaret spoil them, or is she too strict, or does she try to dictate things that Elizabeth has other ideas on?)
• What are the negotiations with Spain like for Arthur’s marriage? What does Elizabeth think of Isabella of Castile, who she corresponds with, and what does she think of her new daughter-in-law?
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• The first time Elizabeth and Henry meet
• Henry on one knee to propose (may be anachronistic, but I would still like it)
• Elizabeth and Henry’s wedding
• Elizabeth, Henry, and baby Arthur
• Elizabeth surrounded by her family at a boisterous Christmas
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§
Thank you! If you have any questions, send them my way through the mods and I would be happy to answer them. :) [If you aren't assigned to me and you just want to chat about one of the fandoms we share, I'm always happy to make a new fandom friend, so feel free to comment below.]
I am participating in the Wrapping Paper mini-challenge, so I include art prompts for my requests. These are definitely only extras – if you are a writer and have no interest in art, just ignore them!
My AO3 name is
The Anarchy RPF | 14th & 15th CE Plantagenet Dynasty RPF | War of the Roses RPF
General likes:
- Canon-style tone.
- Worldbuilding.
- For operas: opera-style ridiculousness, opulence, OTT-ness, drama, etc.
- Fic set during the ‘happily ever after’.
- People being head-over-heels in love with each other and all cute and affectionate.
- People looking all over town for the perfect gift for their partner. (Any occasion that would fit the canon is fine.)
- People who were used to being single having to adjust to being married/having someone else in their space all the time. (Both good adjustments and funny/awkward adjustments.)
- Queer people in love. I particularly like it when there’s no sexuality-or-gender-related angst, but just people uncomplicatedly in love with each other. (Yes, even when it’s not historically accurate/likely for there to be no angst.)
- Pining (especially mutual pining) that resolves into happiness.
- People outwitting other people.
- Honeymoons!
- Porn! I am a fan of smut.
- Happy endings.
Art likes:
- Smiles.
- Sunshine.
- Affectionate, tender embraces.
- Passionate embraces.
- "Novel covers" (or "DVD covers" for the opera fandoms)
- Characters caught in the moment of telling/listening to a joke.
- The moment before a kiss (especially a first kiss).
- Characters with their head on their lover’s shoulder or in their lover’s lap.
- Characters gazing at their lovers with looks of utter besotted-ness. (If for an opera, perhaps while their lover is in the middle of an aria!)
- This is, uh, quite specific, but men kneeling in front of women (whether in penitence, worship, playfulness, lust, homage, etc.) I realised while writing this letter that it was showing up in basically all my fandoms, so might as well ‘fess to it up front. :)
- A man in a greater state of undress and/or dishevelment than the woman he's wooing.
- Portraits of women looking stalwart and determined.
- For my historical RPF fandoms -- I love the Disney Robin Hood, and I wonder how any of these historical characters might be interpreted in a similar-style Disney film. What animal might Margaret Beaufort be? Henry FitzEmpress? Etc. :D
General DNWs:
- Anyone being intolerant of queer characters.
- Queer characters facing problems that arise from their queerness.
- Animal abuse or death.
- Child abuse or death. (For my Wars of the Roses request, references to the fate of the Princes in the Tower are fine. But no onscreen portrayal of their fate, please.)
- Detailed gore. (Battle scene = fine! Description or drawing of character with intestines spilling out = please no!)
- Physical or sexual abuse.
- Dubcon and noncon. (To the extent that dubcon exists in canon, references are fine. Like, you don't have to pretend the Count isn't trying to dubcon Susanna in Nozze. But please don't put it onscreen, and no non-canon dubcon please.)
- Underage sex. (Some of the historical figures I've requested were in underage marriages, and the fact that underage sex occurred off screen is not a DNW. Like, you don't have to AU the fact that Margaret Beaufort was 13 when she gave birth to her son Henry! But please don't focus on it or give detailed references to underage sex, and definitely no onscreen underage sex.)
- Unrequested ships for the characters I've requested, including unrequested poly ships.
- (See individual canons for a few more specific canon DNWs.)
Note on opera productions: I’ve requested a particular production in only one case (Le Comte Ory – Met 2011), because its interpretation of the central trio is idiosyncratic and I love it. In all other cases, I’ve noted my favourite production(s) for reference and occasionally for plot/art points, but they’re not a must. Several are on Met Player, which has a seven-day free trial subscription (but careful, it’s addictive, haha!) and one is on Youtube.
Characters: Rosina, Conte di Almaviva, Figaro
All Characters Required? Rosina is my only must! I would love a story with all three characters, but if you have an idea that only requires Rosina, or Rosina and one of the others, that’s fine.
Favourite Production(s): I’ve watched a lot of Barbers! “My” Barber is the Met 2007, starring DiDonato, Flórez, Mattei, and Del Carlo. Perfect casting in all roles, fantastic chemistry, and gorgeous singing. It’s on Met Player (with a free 7-day trial subscription), and bits and pieces are on Youtube. I also like the famous 2009 RoH one with DiDonato in a wheelchair after breaking her foot opening night (DVD only as far as I know), which retains DiDonato & Flórez, but I like 2007 better because Mattei is an absolutely perfect, definitive Figaro and Del Carlo’s Bartolo is hilarious. Also Flórez’s drunk-soldier costume & act is funnier in 2007, and he and DiDonato are about 50% more lovestruck teenagers, especially towards the end, which I enjoy. (Poor exasperated Figaro, trying to get these handsy besotted lovers to escape down the fucking ladder already!) [Six-and-a-half minutes of this part, from “Ah, qual colpo inaspettato!” through all of “Zitti zitti”, is on Youtube, to give you a taste for the central trio’s chemistry.] And finally I also enjoy the 2014 Met one, which is the same production as 2007 but stars Leonard, Brownlee, and Maltman. I find Maltman’s Figaro underwhelming, but Leonard and Brownlee are lovely and I’d particularly enjoy art of them together. (Tiny Youtube clip.)
I just love this opera. It’s so funny and bubbly and effervescent, and yet there’s a real story as well. Rosina’s being menaced with a forced marriage to her elderly guardian, and she’s willing to elope with a penniless student she’s fallen in love with during nighttime serenades in order to escape. This could’ve gone extremely badly for her! (See for example poor Gilda in Rigoletto.) But instead Rosina outwits her guardian, wins her true love, and becomes a Countess, all in the course of one extremely eventful day.
Rosina is the heart of this opera for me. (As she is in Nozze too.) I adore her cleverness, her quick wit, her fearlessness, and her utter commitment to getting what she wants. Every time she outwits Bartolo I grin (the falling letter! The laundry list! Etc.). And all the clandestine flirting with ‘Lindoro’ (in his various costumes) is adorable. By the end of the opera, she’s truly earned her happy ending.
I obviously ship Rosina/Almaviva a lot – and while I do see Barber & Nozze as two halves of a whole, I’d prefer to have Barber fic not foreshadow Nozze. (For example, I see the Count as truly infatuated with Rosina at this point, and wouldn’t enjoy a Barber fic in which he was perving on/flirting with other women.) Some ideas: Rosina or the Count’s POV during any of the opera’s scenes. Rosina and the Count’s wedding night (as explicitly, joyously smutty as you please!) Rosina learning how to be a Countess, with a fondly infatuated husband constantly distracting her. (If you want to give the Count a first name, I’m fine with that. Or Rosina can use Lindoro as a pet name if you like, or keep playfully calling him ‘signore’. Whatever works for your story!)
I also love Rosina and the Count’s separate relationships with Figaro, and how they seem to be growing towards friendship as the opera progresses. (Culminating in the comradeship of “Zitti zitti”.) It’d be neat to see his POV on the events of the opera, particularly if using the older-brother flair Mattei gives to the character, or how he allows himself to be persuaded to give up his barbering and enter the Count’s service afterwards. (Lots of gold, I imagine?)
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• ‘Lindoro’ serenading Rosina on her balcony.
• Rosina writing her letter to Lindoro and plotting her plan of attack during “Una voce poco fa”.
• Rosina’s wheelchair and pink cast from RoH 2009 are adorable. I’d love to see any art of her from that production, especially flirting with/kissing Almaviva, but also plotting with Figaro.
• Almaviva in costume! As I mentioned, I love the 2007 drunken-soldier costume a lot. But any costume is great.
• The singing lesson scene (with a sleeping Bartolo, perhaps?)
• Exasperated Figaro on the ladder, with besotted lovers necking beneath.
• The trio singing “Zitti zitti” and smiling a lot. Especially the trio from 2007.
• The Count and Rosina kissing, or embracing. (I’m equally fond of DiDonato/Flórez and Leonard/Brownlee’s portrayals, and would love to see either. If the latter, I found the height difference hot, so please keep it!)
Characters: Rosina, Conte di Almaviva, Susanna, Figaro
All Characters Required? Rosina is my only must! If your story includes all four characters, that’s great, but don’t feel you have to shoehorn them in if they don’t fit.
Favourite Production(s): I must have seen thirty Nozzes at this point! It’s my favourite opera. I do have a favourite production which I utterly adore – the 1993 Gardiner (Paris), with Terfel, Hagley, Martinpelto, and Gilfry. The central couples are perfectly cast, with fantastic voices, chemistry, and acting, and Hagley is THE Susanna. I also really like the character interpretations, and Rosina’s relationship with Susanna & Figaro. It’s available on Youtube.
Notes on a few other productions:
• For an older Count/Countess, IMO the best is the Met’s 1998 production with Fleming, Terfel, Bartoli, and Croft. I don’t really like Croft’s Count, but the other three are good (though Bartoli switches out Susanna’s arias and I miss the standard ones).
• For another good young cast (all early 30s or younger), try Salzburg 1995 (on Youtube), with Hvorostovsky, Terfel, Kringlebotn, Graham, and a young Röschmann in her first big break. I think it’s the only time Hvorostovsky & Terfel ever co-starred; Dima’s own laughing assessment was that “Bryn ate me alive and spat me out!”, but his Count is fine (particularly when he’s singing with Kringlebotn & Röschmann in Act II, and not overshadowed by Terfel). And Röschmann’s Susanna is lovely and has a good rapport with Kringlebotn.
• For my favourite Cherubino, see Isabel Leonard’s portrayal in Met 2014.
• For Rosina/Susanna, Gardiner is my favourite but I also really like La Scala 2017 (Damrau/Schultz), which is Damrau’s debut as the Countess. She and Schultz have great chemistry together (here’s Sull'aria), and are both absolutely gorgeous. (Although fair warning, some of that production is weird and Rosina/Count doesn’t work for me in it).
Like in Barber, Rosina is the centre of Nozze for me. Figaro/Susanna is delightful (particularly in well-cast productions) and I love their relationship too, but it’s Rosina who owns my heart. The combination of her steadfast love for her husband (even when he’s being an utter dickhead) and her alliance with Susanna to outsmart him and show him the error of his ways is just fantastic. I want a happy ending for her so desperately!
Ships: First, Count/Rosina, of course. If you can get them to what Rosina would consider a happy ending, that would be wonderful. I think she’s clear-eyed about his weakness for pretty women at this point, and accepts that it’s probably impossible to cure him of straying and sleeping with other women occasionally. But him remembering how & why he fell in love with Rosina in the first place, and no longer neglecting her and leaving her pining for him, would go a hell of a long way. I’d love it if it was her clever outwitting of him that reminded him of their courtship in Barber, and led to a reconciliation. (I am also never going to say no to repentant!Count making it up to Rosina in every way he can, including in the bedroom. And I do think he’s genuinely repentant – he’s a proud man and if he wasn’t repentant he would never humble his pride and kneel to her in front of so many people.) Even if it’s just ‘happy for now’ (with the tacit acknowledgment that he’ll probably be back to his old ways in six months), I’ll take it.
Then there’s Susanna/Figaro & Rosina. I love Susanna & Figaro’s relationship – especially in productions like the Gardiner, where Susanna absolutely has Figaro wrapped around her little finger and they’re ridiculously in love – and I love that Rosina’s friendship with and reliance on Figaro has continued after the events of Barber. She hasn’t developed airs on becoming Countess and dropped him. One thing I’d be interested in is a story that looked at Rosina’s friendship with Figaro (and subsequently Susanna as well) from Barber through to Figaro – how it changed and developed, and how it was there for her when she needed it during the events of Nozze. Or maybe a story about how Rosina helped matchmake Susanna & Figaro! Or a post-Nozze story about Rosina’s continuing friendship with Susanna & Figaro after their marriage.
And finally, there’s my non-canon pairing of Rosina/Susanna. This particularly works for me in productions where they’re close in age, like the Gardiner. In many ways Susanna is very similar to Barber!Rosina, so I definitely buy that they would become close friends and companions. I’d love to read a story in which that friendship developed over time into something more. Usually I’m not a fan of infidelity, but in this case I’d be fine with Rosina/Susanna existing alongside their canon pairings. Anything from a cute stolen kisses scene, to Susanna comforting Rosina after the Count’s latest shenanigans, to another Susanna/Rosina plan to outwit the Count, would be great. Or their first meeting, or the first time Susanna or Rosina realized she was falling in love with the other, or Rosina or Susanna thinking about how the Count's jealous suspicions of the men of the household are laughably misplaced, etc. etc. I will love it all.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• I love the Act II finale – the music is gorgeous, and the drama tense. Any snapshot from it would be neat. Susanna hiding around a corner/behind a curtain while Rosina and the Count face off! The bit where the Count offers Rosina his arm to leave together and she totally scorns him! Susanna emerging from the wardrobe to shocked faces from Rosina and the Count! Etc.
• Susanna and Figaro flirting.
• Susanna and Rosina dressing in each other’s clothing/Susanna adjusting Rosina’s veil.
• Susanna, Figaro, and Rosina smiling at each other.
• The Count romancing ‘Susanna’/his wife in disguise.
• The final scene, with a penitent Count kneeling at Rosina’s feet (the Gardiner in particular does this very well). Or with him kissing her hands (or a real kiss! Only a few productions give us one but I’d like it.)
A few canon-specific DNWs:
• While I like Cherubino, and having him around is fine, Cherubino/Countess is my NOTP, and the Countess being attracted to him is a big DNW for me. I also don’t like the idea of Cherubino as the Count’s lovechild.
• Some productions have the Count be physically abusive to Rosina during his jealous rage in “Esci ormai garzon malnato”. Physical abuse is an ironclad DNW for me. I’m okay with him having a jealous rage/shouting at Rosina/threatening to kill Cherubino, as long as he doesn’t physically touch her. (Although honestly I’d prefer not to have that part of the finale be focused on.)
• Please no age gap between the Count and Countess. I’m fine with either a young Count/Countess or a middle-aged Count/Countess, but not with age-gap.
• For Rosina/Susanna, please no power-dynamic or mistress-servant kink. I know they aren’t social equals, but I prefer them to be as much genuine friends as possible.
Characters: Adèle, Isolier, Comte Ory
All Characters Required? Adèle and Isolier, please. The Comte can come or not, depending on your story.
Favourite Production(s): As this is the one opera where I requested a particular production, I obviously have a favourite! ;) This production is available on Met Player (with a free 7-day trial) and on DVD. The central trio is Damrau/DiDonato/Flórez, and all three have ridiculous levels of chemistry with each other. Which is great because this is the production that takes the farce in the last act – with Isolier pretending to be Adèle and tricking the Comte into feeling up/trying to seduce his own male page – to another level. Instead it becomes a delightful, consensual threesome in which the Comte realises halfway through what’s going on and doesn’t give a fig. Cue threesome romp in bed!
Beyond the threesome, I just really love this production in general. As in Barber, Flórez is a hoot in disguise (here a pontificating hermit and a surprisingly handsy nun). DiDonato is a delight as Isolier, the earnest young page who lays honest siege to his lady love’s heart (and wins her hand!) while conspiring with her to frustrate the Comte’s amatory intentions (and then choosing with her to indulge those intentions for a little while). And Damrau, one of my favourite sopranos, is a sweet, fluffy, but shrewd young Countess who totally rumbles “Sister Colette” and spends the rest of the opera trolling him.
Things I would love to see! The threesome, obviously. As explicit and hot or as bubbly and light-hearted as you like. (Or both! Both is good.) There’s an additional outtake clip on Youtube (from the dress rehearsal) that takes the explicit level even higher than in the actual show – the Comte and Isolier stick their heads up Adèle’s skirts – and I love that. I’d also love to see if the Comte came back later (perhaps for their wedding? Or a year or so down the line?) and all three of them fell back into bed together again.
I’d also enjoy Adèle/Isolier fic, with or without the platonic(ish) presence of the Comte. (Maybe he comes back a year later and there is no threesome but he flirts roguishly with both of them? Maybe he tries to come back in a new disguise to troll them but they see through it immediately – or do they?) Damrau and DiDonato have delicious chemistry and I would definitely love to read more about their Adèle and Isolier falling in love. Either of their POVs during an opera scene would be lovely, or after the opera when Isolier meets Adèle’s brother and the engagement goes forward. What do they tell Adèle’s brother about how they met/fell in love? Somehow I doubt they’d ever tell him about the threesome, lol, although they might tell him some abridged version of how Isolier saved Adèle from the aspirations of the libertine Comte.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• The Comte in his nun disguise! I love ‘Sister Colette’.
• Sister Colette and Adèle.
• Sister Colette kneeling at Adèle’s feet (especially if Adèle has that knowing smirk on her face).
• Adèle and Isolier in love, embracing, kissing, etc.
• Threesome romp!
• Isolier and the Comte kissing while Adèle watches them, smiling.
• Isolier or the Comte with their head up Adèle’s skirts while the other one watches avidly and Adèle giggles.
Characters: Empress Matilda | Maude, Matilda of Boulogne, Henry FitzEmpress
All Characters Required? Nope! I would be happy with a story about any combination of these characters, or about any of them on their own. [Stephen is the fourth character in the tagset, and he’s more than welcome as well, as long as he’s in combination with one or more of the others.]
This time period is just so intriguing for me! The personalities involved are huge and the clash of wills at once so personal and so public. I would love a story about any or all of my requested characters, whether a small private moment or an epic wartime drama or anything in between.
[I have read and enjoyed some fictional portrayals of this time period – most notably the Brother Cadfael series and Penman’s When Christ and His Saints Slept. I decided to request in this fandom instead of either of those because I want to leave your hands completely free for fresh characterizations. If you love either of those portrayals, though, you are welcome to take inspiration from their characterization and/or events (and to use fictional characters from the Cadfael series, if you so desire; however I am tired of Penman’s fictional Ranulf and would prefer he not appear). This is 1000% only an option, though!]
Maude: What a woman! Truly a whirlwind, and you can 100% see where her son Henry got his epicness from. I would love a story about pretty much any time in Maude’s quest for the English crown. I love the famous episode in which she escapes from Stephen in a snowstorm – if you wrote that in a TV series or movie, it would be mocked as unbelievable! I would also love a closer look at her relationship with her son Henry. (What did she think of his boyhood invasion of England, after which Stephen actually paid his armies? What were her feelings when Henry was able to do what she couldn’t, and take the English throne? Did she see herself in Henry? Was she maybe a tiny bit jealous of him, even though she was incredibly proud at the same time? What does she think when she learns of his marriage?) The only thing I wouldn’t enjoy is a focus on her relationship with her husband Geoffrey; he bothers me intensely. (On the other hand, while I'm not personally a Maude/Brian Fitz Count shipper, the ship doesn't bother me, and if you ARE a shipper I'm fine with it being included.)
Matilda of Boulogne: Matilda is amazing. My favorite episode of hers is the incredible year of 1141. Maude captures Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln, while Matilda and Stephen’s heir is still a child – Stephen has effectively been deposed, and the civil war would seem to be over. But Matilda doesn’t give up that easily! While Maude is in London getting ready for her coronation and infuriating the city populace, Matilda rallies Stephen’s troops and leads them to London. When the people of London chase Maude out of their city (another dramatic episode!), Maude goes to besiege Stephen’s brother Bishop Henry, who is besieging Winchester (it’s complicated, there are two castles in Winchester and one is besieging the other, with the citizens of Winchester the unhappy collateral damage). Matilda occupies London, then follows Maude to Winchester and attacks, leading to a smashing victory in which Maude’s half-brother and biggest supporter, Robert of Gloucester, is captured. This changes everything! Robert and Stephen are exchanged for each other, and the civil war is back in full swing again. (And Maude would never again be anywhere near this close to taking the throne!) A story set during this time period would be wonderful! It’s such a critical point in the Anarchy, with such intense emotional height for both women. But I am more than ready to read a story set at a different time as well!
Henry FitzEmpress: I really enjoy the young Henry! I would prefer to read a story focused on Henry and the Anarchy, if that makes sense, rather than on Henry Regnant with Eleanor at his side (although I love Eleanor, and you don’t have to pretend she doesn’t exist). Two of my favorite episodes with young Henry: 1) his rash boyhood invasion of England (at fourteen!), in which he raises some hell but doesn’t have the money to pay his troops, so he asks Stephen to pay them and Stephen actually does in return for Henry going back to Anjou. This whole situation cracks me up. I would love to read a story about why and how this whole thing happened, and what Stephen thinks of young Henry, and what young Henry thinks of Stephen, etc etc. And 2) the Treaty of Winchester, when Henry and Stephen end the Anarchy and decide the succession. It’s just such an unusual way to end a civil war, and I’d love to read more about it! I would also love to read about Henry & Maude’s relationship, as I mentioned in her section.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Maude escaping in the snowstorm
• Maude having Stephen brought before her in chains; bonus if Stephen is kneeling in front of her - double bonus if he's in chains AND wearing his crown
• Maude and Henry! (Either child-Henry or adult-Henry. Or baby Henry!)
• AU where Maude wins: "coronation portrait" of Maude in her crown
• Matilda besieging Winchester
• Matilda being reunited with Stephen after the prisoner exchange
• Stephen meeting the fourteen-year-old Henry after his invasion
• Stephen and Henry sharing the kiss of peace at the Treaty of Winchester
• Henry introducing Eleanor to Maude.
Characters: Joan of Kent, Edward of Woodstock | The Black Prince, Katherine Swynford, Catherine de Valois
All Characters Required? No. I see these characters in two subsets: Joan and Edward, and Joan, Katherine, and Catherine. (For the latter subset, if you find it too hard to include Catherine, you could just do Joan and Katherine, although I would prefer to have all three.) If you write a story about either of these subsets, you don’t have to include the other subset. (Of course, if your story turns out to include all four characters, that’s fine too!)
Joan/Edward
Joan of Kent (the Fair Maid of Kent) has such a fascinating history, I just long to know (fictionalized) more! Secret marriage at age 12? Bigamous marriage at age 13? Both husbands fighting over her when the first one returns from overseas when she’s 20? The Pope has to step in and rule on which husband is her Real Husband?
And then, after eleven years of marriage and five children, when her husband dies, the Prince of Wales turns out to be madly in love with her, despite the fact that she’s now in her 30s, a few years older than him, has a bunch of children and a scandalous past, doesn’t have his parents’ approval, and needs four (four!) papal dispensations in order to marry him, and they’re married as soon as they can rush the dispensations through (within nine months of her husband’s death!) and have fifteen happy years of marriage before he dies of dysentery.
I would just love to see your interpretation of Joan and Edward’s love story!
While I would prefer Joan/Edward to be a genuine love match (it’s hard to see why Edward would have married her otherwise!), I am open to however you interpret Joan’s previous two marriages. Her fear of disclosing her secret marriage to Holland for fear he would be executed for treason might seem to point to a genuine regard for him, but then again she was 12 and he was 26 – it’s hard to like a guy who decides to secretly marry a twelve-year-old. And her marriage to Salisbury may have started when they both were 13, and Salisbury may (may!) have truly fallen in love with her, but it’s hard to like a guy who literally holds his wife captive so she can’t testify about her first marriage. I’m open to an interpretation of either or both of these marriages as happy (but probably complex?) ones, or as unhappy ones.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Joan and Edward at a joust. Joan giving Edward her favor?
• Edward presenting Joan with a silver cup from one of his military campaigns (this was during her earlier marriage and is a major hint that he was long-term pining for her)
• Joan on tiptoe to kiss Edward while he is still in his black armor
Joan, Katherine, and Catherine
These are three ladies who made Unconventional Marriages (not always by choice), and I find it really interesting that those marriages ended up central stage in the decline and fall of the Plantagenet Dynasty! None of them were conventional noblewomen, and none of them preserved a pure and regal reputation – at points in each of their lives, they had pretty much no reputation at all! They each found the man they loved, and they stuck with him, whatever the scandalized world might say about it.
Joan
See above section about Joan and Edward.
Katherine
The teenage governess who became friends with a teenage duchess, and then fell in love with her friend’s widower when they were both grieving their first spouses. The knight’s daughter turned duke’s mistress, who refused to hide from a scandalized society, and openly loved the most powerful man in the kingdom, even though she did not have the legal right to call him her own. The sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer, who raised three households in one cacophonous blended family, and was beloved by her departed friend’s children as much as by her own. The mistress turned duchess, who despite all odds and scandal had her love and her children legitimized by the Church and by society.
Katherine Roët Swynford, later Duchess of Lancaster, is truly a legendary figure. I find her love story with John of Gaunt such a complex and beautiful one. I’m also deeply interested in her friendship with her employer Blanche of Lancaster, and in her subsequent role as mother and stepmother to her huge blended family (Blanche’s three, her Swynford three, and her Beaufort four). That family was absolutely critical to the story of the Plantagenet dynasty from that point forward – from the rise of the cadet branch of Lancaster founded by her stepson Henry Bolingbroke (who called her “the King’s mother”), to the rise of the cadet branch of York founded through the line of her daughter Joan Beaufort, to the fall of the Plantagenet dynasty and the rise of the Tudor dynasty founded through the line of her son John Beaufort. A forbidden love changed the course of a kingdom, and ultimately brought down a dynasty.
Catherine
When your father is known as Charles the Mad, things may not go very well for your country. Teenage princess Catherine de Valois found herself spoils of war for the English King who had conquered her country, disinherited her brother, and coolly demanded she marry him. Within a year, she’d been carried off to England, impregnated, and abandoned, as the King went back to continue fighting his wars. Within another year, she was left a widow with a baby King for a son, a Dowager Queen only twenty years old.
A beautiful young dowager queen was a source of great worry for the guardians of the kingdom, her baby’s uncles. There was talk that Catherine might marry an English nobleman and give birth to influential royal siblings, and Parliament moved to prohibit such a destabilizing factor by passing a law that said if she married without the king’s consent, her husband would forfeit all his lands and possessions (and that the king had to be of age to give his consent). Yet forbidding love is a fool’s errand, and although English noblemen might stay away from Catherine for fear of losing everything, they were not the only men around. A Welsh courtier named Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur (or Owen Tudor) caught her eye. (Legend has some colorful ways this may have happened; some say, for example, that he fell into her lap while dancing, and that the rest was history.) However it happened, she was soon pregnant with their first child.
It’s unclear whether Catherine and Owen ever actually married. The Tudor dynasty certainly argued that they did, as they already had dubious legitimacy from their Beaufort side and didn’t need it from their Tudor side as well. But there’s no evidence that they did, just that they loved each other and had several children together. They stayed happily together until Catherine’s death, shortly after childbirth, in 1437. Their sons Edmund and Jasper became close to their royal half-brother, and Edmund was the father of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch.
Prompts for The Ladies:
• I love all the parallels and contrasts between these unusual love stories. So many relationships in this time period seem predictable and conventional, but all of these seem anything but! What did it mean to Joan, to Katherine, to Catherine, to step outside societal norms, brave condemnation and scorn, and take their joy with both hands? How did they cope with the scandals? Was there a fierce vindication for Joan and Katherine when they forced society to acknowledge them, despite their pasts?
• Joan and Katherine must have at least known of each other, and most likely met, since Katherine was in love with Joan’s brother-in-law. What did they think of each other? Did Joan scorn Katherine, since their societal rank was so different, or did she pity another woman facing scandal because of the man she loved? Or did they first meet when Katherine was just a governess, Blanche’s friend? Or maybe even before, when Katherine was a knight’s daughter in the royal household, and Joan the beautiful and happy wife of the Prince of Wales?
• Catherine grew up in France and wouldn’t have known Joan and Katherine, but after her arrival in England she no doubt heard their stories. What does she think of them? Does she liken her situation to theirs, as she falls in love with a completely unacceptable Welshman? (Who, legend has it, was uncommonly handsome.) Perhaps she finds a forgotten love letter of theirs, tucked in a cubby somewhere in one of the palaces. Or she’s debating whether to forget her duty and embrace her love for Owen, and one of her friends tells her about a woman (or women) who were brave in love.
• I kind of really dig the complexity of matrimony in these women’s lives. Joan’s checkered matrimonial history is so complicated as to become almost ridiculous, and yet in the end Edward simply doesn’t care about any of it, he just wants her, and her past be damned. Katherine has a happy first marriage, and then a lifelong partnership outside of marriage, only at the end to shock everyone by being officially wed and turned overnight into a legitimate Duchess after being slandered and abused by society for so long. Catherine is a forced bride, who finds love with a social inferior, and may not even bother to sanctify it with matrimony (and after all, a forced bride may not find weddings all that appealing anyway). A story that explored the role of matrimony (and lack of matrimony) in their lives would be intriguing!
• A fic that tied the three of them together through an image (say, Christmas morning surrounded by their family), or a place (say, attending the royal court), or an experience (say, horseback riding with their love), or an emotion (perhaps, the happiest moment of their lives? Or the moment they first realized the depth of their love? Or the moment they first realized they were loved back? Or – something else I haven’t thought of!) would be really lovely.
• Like I said at the top, I see all these women as intertwined in the story of the Plantagenet dynasty, and in the beginning of its fall. I would love a fic that captured a sense of that, of private loves that became part of the historical sweep, of intimate moments that became so much more. I really enjoy this dynasty, and the beginning of its fall is an intriguing time period. And these three women, with their society-defying love affairs, were centrally involved in how and why the Plantagenet Dynasty went in the directions it did.
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Katherine surrounded by her boisterous blended family
• Katherine being honored as "the king's mother" by her stepson Henry Bolingbroke; whether just the two of them, or maybe Henry bowing his head to her at court after the coronation while courtiers look on? Or whatever that means to you!
• Katherine, Blanche, John of Gaunt, Hugh Swynford, and their ten assorted children (+ in-laws & grandchildren?) in the afterlife. Truly a menagerie. xD Or just the trio of Katherine, Blanche, and John!
• Catherine meeting Owen somewhere secret - maybe the stables?
• Owen kneeling in front of Catherine, and Catherine laughing
• The contrast between Catherine's first marriage (Princess of France, a forced bride) and her second (disregarded Dowager Queen, eloping)
• Any of the ladies with their true love
Characters: Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York Queen of England
All Characters Required? No, you don’t have to include both. (But you can!)
Canon DNWs: 1) The character Edmund Tudor. 2) The ship Richard III/Elizabeth of York.
I really enjoy the Wars of the Roses era! Not all the death and destruction, but how complex it is, and how tense the jockeying is, and how things are really quite up in the air for long periods of time. People who start off in bad positions end up on the top, and vice versa, and then vice versa again. Turncoats and undercover operations and cunning stratagems and long-term planning all abound. I also am truly neutral on Richard III – I’ve read beautiful Ricardian work (The Sunne in Splendour!!), and I’d buy him as a hero if you’re a Ricardian, but I’d also be fine with an anti-Ricardian fic where he was a dastardly villain. (In either case, however, note my DNW about Richard/Elizabeth.)
While I am intrigued by a great number of people from this era, I’m just requesting two, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York. I would love a story about either or both of these women!
(If you are writing Margaret Beaufort, please do not include Edmund Tudor. This includes anything more than the most glancing of references to him as Henry's father.)
Margaret
Margaret’s life is so fascinating to me. From childhood, she is a pawn in the games of powerful men, who then turns herself into a player. For the sake of her son, she schemes tirelessly, manipulates constantly, and never stops playing the long game. Over the course of decades, from the child-mother of thirteen to the king’s-mother of forty-four, she plays the War of the Roses perhaps better than any other, and moves kingdoms to secure her son a crown.
I would love pretty much any story you wanted to tell me about Margaret (excepting only one that involved Edmund). I don’t need her to be a morally pure character – in fact, if you buy into the theory that she (and/or Henry) was the one to make the call about the Princes in the Tower, that’s fine with me. She can be as morally grey (or even outright villainous) as you want to make her. I just want to see your vision of what might have driven her and been inside her head during those long exhausting dangerous decades of trimming her sails to match the wind, and never giving up hope or losing sight of her dream for her son.
I would also really enjoy a story set during her triumphal years, when she was an (extremely rare) feme sole, despite being married, and had a great deal of influence on her son the King. She was only 44 when Henry became King, and was in power another 24 years. What was power like for her? What did she think of her daughter-in-law? What about her grandchildren? (She outlived her son, and died shortly after her grandson Henry’s marriage and coronation.) Did she sympathize with Catherine of Aragon during her long uncertain years as Arthur’s impoverished widow?
Some specific Margaret prompts:
• The first time Margaret looks at her son and decides that he will be the King of England.
• Margaret learning how to transform herself from a child pawn into a player of the game of kings.
• The first time Margaret has to make a morally dubious move.
• Margaret negotiating her marriage with Stanley (which I read as very calculated on both sides, in a way that appeals to me!)
• Margaret persuading Stanley to risk his hostage son’s life in order to give her son a better shot at the throne
• Margaret’s relationship with the Yorks – what does she think of the different members of the family? How does she manipulate them? Who does she watch out for most closely, and who does she think she can manage most easily?
• If Margaret DID mastermind the ‘disappearance’ of the Princes in the Tower, how and why did she do it? Was it hard for her?
• Margaret and Elizabeth Woodville’s negotiations for the marriage of their children.
• The moment that Margaret first lets herself believe that Henry will become King.
• What is it like for her when she becomes a feme sole, has Henry’s trust, and acquires all the power she ever dreamed of? What’s it like being able to stop playing the long game and just rule? What’s it like not having to curb your tongue and listen to powerful men any longer?
• Margaret and Henry’s relationship over the years, and how it changes
• Margaret and her grandchildren
• Margaret and her daughter-in-law
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• Margaret watching Henry be crowned, or watching the crowds acclaim him in a procession
• Margaret with her grandchildren – whether playing with them when they’re little, or watching Henry VIII marry Catherine or be crowned
• Margaret and Elizabeth Woodville negotiating the Henry/Elizabeth marriage
• Margaret with her baby son, dreaming of the future
• Margaret holding the crown (or wearing it!)
Elizabeth
Elizabeth of York is also deeply intriguing to me! Her life was full of such wild reversals and changes in fortune, and I’d really like to see a fictional take on how she handled the tumult. Until she was 17, she was a beloved eldest daughter, the acclaimed Princess of a secure dynasty (well, after the restoration of her father when she was 5!), safe and protected within a large, close family. (And engaged to the Dauphin of France for most of her life, from age 9 to age 16.) Then her father’s sudden and unexpected death brought her 12-year-old brother to the throne (I wonder what their relationship was like?), and sent her mother, herself, and her sisters fleeing into sanctuary out of fear of her uncle’s power. (But her uncle and her father had always been close – was Elizabeth as afraid of Richard as her mother was? What did she think when he had her maternal uncle executed?) Then Richard ‘discovered’ the precontract between her father and another woman, and declared Elizabeth and all her siblings bastards, and crowned himself King. Then Elizabeth’s brothers in the Tower disappeared, never to reappear. Then Elizabeth’s mother and Margaret Beaufort negotiated her marriage with Henry Tudor, who swore an oath to marry her and promptly invaded England (he failed the first time). Then Elizabeth lived at Richard’s court as the niece of the King for two years, and became close to her dying aunt Anne. Then there was a rumor that Richard intended to marry her once Anne died, and he sent her away and started negotiating her marriage to the Portuguese heir. Then Henry invaded again, killed Richard, crowned himself King, repealed the act that made Elizabeth a bastard, got Elizabeth pregnant, and married her. (It’s interesting to me that Elizabeth was pregnant before her wedding – Arthur was an eight-month baby. Did she and Henry actually really like each other and get carried away? Did they agree that their marriage was a necessity to settle England, and wanted to present the pope with a fait accompli in order to make sure their dispensation came through? Or that their fertility was necessary to establish a new dynasty and secure peace, and that they should make sure of it before committing to each other?) [Please note, however, that while I am completely fine with Henry and Elizabeth being awkward and unsure around each other at first, I would definitely not want Elizabeth dubconned or nonconned into marriage.]
All of the above happened in less than three years. Edward IV died in April 1483 and Elizabeth and Henry were married in January 1486, a month before her twentieth birthday. Talk about a rollercoaster three years!
I would love pretty much any story you wanted to write about Elizabeth. (Excepting Elizabeth/Richard – I ship Richard/Anne forever, thanks to Sharon Kay Penman, and incest ships don’t appeal to me. A close uncle & niece relationship is fine though!) I do ship Elizabeth/Henry, but I don’t need their relationship to be 100% fluffy and straightforward, particularly at first! Angst and drama are perfectly okay. (No consent issues though, please.) I like how Thomas Penn put it in his Henry VII biography Winter King (2012), writing about Elizabeth’s death, that “[though] founded on pragmatism, Henry and Elizabeth’s marriage had nevertheless blossomed throughout the uncertainty and upheaval of the previous eighteen years. This was a marriage of ‘faithful love’, of mutual attraction, affection and respect, from which the king seems to have drawn great strength.” Henry was absolutely devastated and brokenhearted by Elizabeth’s death in childbirth, which took everyone a bit by surprise as he was certainly not known for his emotions.
Some prompts:
• What was Elizabeth’s family life as a teenager, and how did it compare with the family she built with Henry? We know that Christmases were especially celebrated in the Tudor court, and were a high-merriment family time. Did Elizabeth get that from her own childhood? Henry had never had a close family life like that. What did he like best about it?
• What did Elizabeth think when her mother and Margaret Beaufort negotiated her marriage with Henry Tudor? Was she in favor of the plan? What did she think about staying in England and becoming its Queen? (After having been engaged to the Dauphin of France for most of her life, and then Richard trying to marry her off to the heir of Portugal.) Did she see herself as inheriting England from her father and brother, in a way?
• How did she grieve her father and brothers’ deaths? Did she believe that her brothers were dead? Did she believe that maybe one of her brothers had escaped, and was she constantly looking over her shoulder, thinking that he might show up safe after all? How did she feel about that, especially after she was Queen and had children who might be threatened by an uncle’s reappearance?
• How did Elizabeth and Henry fall in love? Was it before or after they married? What was the first time she realized that, against all odds, she had found love in an arranged, pragmatic marriage with a man everyone thought was cold and pragmatic himself?
• How does Elizabeth tell Henry that she’s pregnant? What does it mean to both of them? Do they see the baby as the end of the Wars of the Roses, and swear a vow to make it so? (I love that they went totally off script on the name and chose Arthur – if that’s not symbolic, I don’t know what is.) Do they keep it a secret from everyone, or do people know at the wedding that she’s already (newly) pregnant? Or do they not know until after the wedding, and it’s a honeymoon announcement from Elizabeth to Henry?
• How does Elizabeth and Henry’s love grow over the years? What are some milestones along the way? Or quiet/intimate moments of rest?
• How does Elizabeth help Henry consolidate his power and make certain that the Tudor dynasty is secure and the wars are over? How does she feel about Perkin Warbeck?
• Henry spent a lot of his life in exile abroad. How does Elizabeth teach him more about the country he has come to rule?
• What is Elizabeth’s relationship with her mother-in-law Margaret Beaufort like? Did she already know her from her time at Edward IV and Richard III’s courts as Lady Stanley? Do they ever have to work together towards some end? What are the mother vs grandmother negotiations like over Elizabeth’s children? (E.g., does Margaret spoil them, or is she too strict, or does she try to dictate things that Elizabeth has other ideas on?)
• What are the negotiations with Spain like for Arthur’s marriage? What does Elizabeth think of Isabella of Castile, who she corresponds with, and what does she think of her new daughter-in-law?
Art ideas, in addition to my general art likes:
• The first time Elizabeth and Henry meet
• Henry on one knee to propose (may be anachronistic, but I would still like it)
• Elizabeth and Henry’s wedding
• Elizabeth, Henry, and baby Arthur
• Elizabeth surrounded by her family at a boisterous Christmas
Thank you! If you have any questions, send them my way through the mods and I would be happy to answer them. :) [If you aren't assigned to me and you just want to chat about one of the fandoms we share, I'm always happy to make a new fandom friend, so feel free to comment below.]
